Alabama

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently issued an en banc decision finding the U.S. District Court of for the Northern District of Alabama erred in granting summary judgment in a sexual harassment case where the harassment was not directed specifically at the plaintiff.

The U.S. Justice Department has been ordered to reinstate a Huntsville woman to her former
job as a federal prosecutor nearly five years after she alleged racial and sexual discrimination. In its ruling
favoring Assistant U.S. Attorney Deirdra Brown-Fleming, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also
ordered the reinstatement of Brown-Fleming's former supervisor, Victor Conrad, who claimed he was demoted for
reporting the situation to his superiors and supporting Brown-Fleming. In addition to reinstatement,
Brown-Fleming is to receive back pay. Brown-Fleming filed the complaint with EEOC in 2002. Hired in 1998, she
was the first black woman to serve as a federal prosecutor in the Huntsville branch of the U.S. Attorney's
Office.

A federal judge in Alabama has increased the amount Family Dollar Stores must pay for classifying certain
employees as salaried managers and making them ineligible for overtime pay. Last month, the jury hearing the
case said the discount chain would have to pay $19.1 million, but the judge has increased [that] to $33.2
million. Jurors found Family Dollar should have classified a number of its store managers as hourly employees,
entitling them to overtime pay. According to the plaintiffs' law firm, Schreiber & Petro of Birmingham,
Ala., the new ruling comes after the court deemed Family Dollar knew it was wrong when it classified the
managers as being ineligible for overtime pay. Family Dollar says it will appeal.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Birmingham on Thursday sued Tyson
Foods after two black employees claimed someone at the company's Ashland [Alabama] plant posted a "whites
only" sign on a bathroom. The sign was up for 24 hours, then taken down. An EEOC investigation revealed the
white employee who posted the sign said he did it at the request of a Tyson plant supervisor. When [Henry]
Adams and [Leon] Walker complained about the segregated bathroom, they were suspended and given disciplinary
write-ups by management, the EEOC suit says.

A federal judge has suspended a race-based hiring and promotion rule that [Alabama]
state agencies have been required to follow for 35 years. The late U.S. District Judge Frank Johnson ruled in a
job discrimination suit in 1970 that the state could not hire or promote a white person from a list of
certified applicants if a higher-ranking black was on the list and available for work. U.S. District Judge
Myron Thompson, who now handles the long-running case, ruled May 20 that the no-bypass rule is no longer
appropriate because of changed circumstances in state hiring and promotions.

A one-time staff member in the Alabama House of Representatives has sued her former employer in
federal district court on claims of job discrimination based on race and gender, according to court documents.
Valenci'a Quest seeks reinstatement in her previous job, back pay and compensation for lost benefits. Clerk
Greg Pappas, the House's top administrator, maintains that the charges are "baseless."

U.S. Pipe
& Foundry will pay $6.5 million and change work procedures in settling a lawsuit filed by its black
employees alleging discrimination on the job. The Birmingham-based firm announced it has agreed to create a
fairness advisory council, to share job openings with all employees and to train supervisors not to
discriminate. The settlement stems from a December 2000 lawsuit filed by employees in federal court at
Birmingham.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear the case of a Birmingham girls' basketball coach who says
he lost his job when he complained about gender discrimination at Ensley High School. The case could affect how
the Title IX law against bias based on a person's sex is enforced in schools and colleges around the country.
Roderick Jackson says school officials in Ensley fired him because he complained the boys' team was getting
better equipment, more resources and overall favorable treatment. The issue before the justices is whether
someone who protests discrimination -- but is not personally a victim of it -- can use Title IX laws against
gender bias to sue. While the law does not specifically mention retaliation, Jackson and his lawyers argue that
Congress intended to protect not only people who are discriminated against but also the people who expose the
unfairness.

Title IX
is best known for its impact in achieving gender equality in college athletics. But its scope goes beyond
athletics to cover gender discrimination in all kinds of federally assisted education programs and activities.
A women's rights group, joined by the U.S. Department of Justice, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a
case that could expand Title IX even further to protect those who complain about gender bias but are not
victims themselves. On Thursday during its private conference, the Court is scheduled to consider whether to
grant review in Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education. At issue is whether Title IX allows a private right
of action for someone who suffered reprisals for complaining about unlawful sex discrimination.

A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court's finding in favor of a
black heavy equipment operator who sued Tuscaloosa County, Ala., for race discrimination. "Not all conduct by
an employer negatively affecting an employee constitutes and adverse employment action," the judges said.
"Instead, an employee must show a 'serious and material change' in the terms, conditions, or privileges of
employment."

A retired executive of Deere & Co. has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against Deere for
denying him the purchase of two equipment dealerships in Alabama. Kenny Edwards, retired director of Golf and
Turf Marketing and Sales Worldwide, filed the lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of Alabama, Western Division. The lawsuit cites Deere for failure to contract in violation of the
Civil Rights Act. Mr. Edwards, who is black, retired Dec. 20, 2001, after 30 years of service with Deere. He
was a key player for Deere in the leasing of golf and turf equipment packages to Tournament Players Club
courses and in leading Deere to becoming the "Official Golf Course Equipment Supplier of the PGA Tour'' in
1997. According to the complaint, seven months into his retirement, Mr. Edwards sought approval from Deere to
buy Skyland Equipment Co. Inc. of Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Tractor and Turf Inc. of Bessemer, Ala., from Don and
Joy Rose.

A federal jury ordered the
city of Mobile to pay more than $250,000 to a white firefighter in a suit over a job promotion that went to a
black co-worker with less seniority. Fire Captain Alan Silvester claimed Fire Chief Stephen Dean, also white,
discriminated against Silvester on the basis of race in promoting black firefighter Mike Trenier to an
administrative post. Trenier finished second to Silvester on the application test for the job. Dean and other
witnesses testified, however, that department heads legally can choose any of the 10 finalists for a job
opening, as determined by the Personnel Board. Dean says he selected Trenier primarily because of his high
grade-point average and the fact that, while serving as interim fire administrator, he oversaw an important
accreditation process for the department.

The Supreme Court on Monday dodged an opportunity to decide if older people may sue over job layoffs
that seem to hit them hardest, a major age discrimination case that came to the court after three tough years
of company cutbacks. Justices have been looking for the right case to resolve the standard for age
discrimination suits. A 1967 law bars on-the-job age bias, but the court has never said if the law allows suits
on grounds that an employer's action had a "disproportionate impact'' on older workers. The law covers about
70 million workers age 40 or older, or nearly half of the work force. In 2002, justices scuttled one attempt to
settle the question, in a challenge by fired utility workers in Florida.

The International House of Pancakes agreed to pay $180,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by four
female employees, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Monday. The money will be
distributed among employees Quontae Bolton, Carolyn Burrell, Peggy Sherman, Enica Daniel and a class of women
working as hostesses, servers and waitresses at IHOP restaurants.

BellSouth has agreed to pay nearly $900,000 and to provide better notice of job opportunities to settle
discrimination claims filed by black employees in its Mobile office. The Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission sued the Atlanta-based telecommunications company in 2001 on behalf of black workers who were
allegedly denied the chance to move into management positions at the office, which employed some 400 people at
the time. A joint statement by the company and the agency said BellSouth would pay a total of $883,000 to 14
people who intervened in the suit, three law firms and nine more people with claims identified by the EEOC.

BellSouth Corp., the third-largest U.S. local-telephone company, agreed to pay
$883,000 to end a government lawsuit that claimed the company unfairly withheld promotions for black workers in
Alabama. The money will go to 23 employees in Mobile, who said they were passed up for promotion because of
their race, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which sued on their behalf. The
company agreed to improve training of managers and notify employees of any entry-level management openings as
part of the settlement, the EEOC said. The EEOC sued Atlanta-based BellSouth in 2001, alleging the company
discriminated against blacks working in Mobile Area Network and Consumer Services operations.

Plaintiffs thwarted from suing state governments under the Americans with Disabilities Act may have discovered
a chink in the states' armor, thanks to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling comes in the cases
of a breast cancer survivor and an asthma sufferer who two years ago lost a landmark disability rights case at
the U.S. Supreme Court. Now they have found a new way to get their claims heard. A three-judge panel last week
revived the suits in which Patricia Garrett and Milton Ash allege that Alabama state agencies discriminated
against them because they were disabled. The panel -- Chief Judge J.L. Edmondson, Judge Edward E. Carnes and
visiting U.S. District Judge Richard W. Story of the Northern District of Georgia -- rejected Alabama's
arguments that had carried the day at the Supreme Court in 2001.

Black employees at Redstone Arsenal have filed a lawsuit claiming a "systemic
bias" within the Army prevents minorities from earning promotions and punishes those who seek redress. The
lawsuit, which seeks class-action status for more than 50 current employees and job applicants at Redstone and
other Army commands in Huntsville, was filed in federal court Friday and reported Thursday by The Huntsville
Times. The filing seeks $300,000 in compensatory damages for each of the plaintiffs, an end to policies that
disparately affect minority employees, an end to reprisals against those who complain, promotions and back pay
for all plaintiffs, and a new mentoring program around Redstone.

A state claim of immunity from suit under the central provision of the Americans With Disabilities Act
will provide the next Supreme Court term with a focus for the court's continuing debate over the balance of
state and federal power. The justices agreed today to hear Tennessee's appeal from a ruling that left the
state open to a lawsuit by two residents who use wheelchairs and who were unable to gain access to state
courtrooms. One plaintiff, George Lane, crawled up two flights of stairs for his arraignment on misdemeanor
traffic charges, and was later arrested for "failure to appear" and jailed when he refused to repeat the ordeal
when it came time for a pretrial hearing.

Kraft
Foods Inc., the largest U.S. foodmaker, settled a government lawsuit over allegations that a male supervisor
propositioned and sexually assaulted more than a dozen male workers at a Nabisco warehouse in Alabama. The
accord with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission came after the company paid "substantial amounts"
in private settlements with the 17 men who said they were abused by the supervisor, said Charles E. Guerrier,
the regional attorney for the government agency in Birmingham, Alabama. The allegations by the Nabisco workers
are part of a growing number of sexual harassment complaints by men.

A settlement has been reached in a federal lawsuit that claimed a male
supervisor was allowed to sexually harass male workers at a Nabisco distribution center in Birmingham. The
suit, filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said the workers, mainly route drivers or warehouse
workers, were subjected to a sexually hostile environment from at least 1995 to 2000 and were retaliated
against when they complained about the supervisor. Lawyers filed court papers Tuesday asking U.S. District
Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn to approve the settlement. The EEOC filed suit in October. It came after a
similar suit filed in August on behalf of 17 male workers was dismissed because they had not received a "right
to sue" letter from the commission, a requirement for lawsuits.

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